By Maurya Simon; Maurya Simon, who teaches creative writing at the University of California, Riverside, was a Fulbright Scholar in India earlier this year

LEAD: The southern tip of the Indian subcontinent possesses an abundance of wildlife sanctuaries supporting some of the most colorful, exotic and awe-inspiring wildlife in the world. Three preserves in particular - Mudumalai in Tamil Nadu, Nagarahole...

THE road twisted up into the hills, smooth one minute, potholed the next, taking us away from the clamor of Kochi, the biggest city in Kerala, which occupies the southeastern corner of the vast Indian subcontinent. By my count, Ramesh, our diver...

PRESSED to name the world's most visited holy cities, one might think of Mecca or Jerusalem. Rome maybe. But the name Tirupati would hardly roll off the tongue of many people, at least not many outside India. Still, the temple above this city in...

By STEVEN R. WEISMAN; Steven R. Weisman is the New Delhi bureau chief of The New York Times

LEAD: When tourists think of India, they usually conjure up images of Hindu bathers on the sacred Ganges River, or houseboats in the shadow of the Himalayan foothills, or ancient forts and maharajah's palaces rising up from the desert. Relatively few...